New Mexico

Pictures are updated to the Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3dsnlo1clw9woli/AAAxWbXtNqPfcu2vDGk9scOxa?dl=0

After a long 8-hour drive through Texas we arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We were disappointed with Carlsbad. We thought it would be A quaint south western, yuppie town. It was really only two steps above the oil towns we passed in West Texas. Lots of poverty in the South West. We had been in motels for the last four nights because of the heat and humidity so we were psyched to be camping again. Because the humidity was so low , only 16% that night, we thought we could handle the heat. Unfortunately, it was a bad night, the temperature doesn’T reduces to the 70s until 3:00 AM, my mother was really struggling to breathe, but that wasn’t even the worst part. We were at Brantley Lake  State Park, with a beautiful view of the lake below. State Oarks are usually better than National Parks because there are showers and water and electricity at the sites.

The campsite was lovely. I went to explore the bathhouse and throw away some trash. When I left there was a huge black hairy spider in the exact spot I had just thrown my trash. I jump-scared. We tried to look up the spiders online but none looked exactly like the two we saw. My mother and I started going to the bathroom together to watch each other’s backs-literally. we went early the next morning, my mother went to flush the toilet before using it and a spider jumped up on the seat, we don’t know from where. There was a woman in the bathroom who confirmed our worst fears; they were tarantulas. As we stood talking to her, she pointed to another spider on the wall and said that’s what you really need to watch out for, it was a brown recluse spider. She also told us that when she and her family used the bathroom late the night before, there were approximately 30 tarantulas all over the ceilings. I was skeeved out for the rest of the day.

We  visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park as soon as it opened. We did the self-guided audio tour, which was excellent. We did not get to see the bats leaving the cave at night because our camp site was nearly an hour away.

Then we drove up to Roswell, because no trip to New Mexico is complete without a trip to the International UFO Museum and Research Center.  It’s a non-profit organization and was only 5.00 dollars to get in, however we spent a lot more in the gift shop.

Then we drove to Albuquerque for the night. The southern part of New Mexico was part of the Chihuahuan desert just like west Texas with oil wells and not much else, but as we climbed it turned to prairie. We saw huge cattle ranches, a sheep ranch, pecan orchards  that we’re my favorite parts of that landscape because it was really the only green we saw in South NM.

Wildlife:
20+ Texas Hairs ( rabbits all over Brantley State Park)
1 kangaroo Rat
6 Tarantulas
1 brown  recluse spider
2 lizards

2 Roadkill